


Oceanborn

by osamuchuu



Category: The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Angst, F/F, God bless this movie for the fact that the entire cast of characters is queer as hell, Hurt/Comfort, I ship traumatized gay immortals only now, Love, M/M, Mental Instability, Mentions of Drowning, Recovery, Team as family putting a shattered person back together, Tenderness, because how can joe/Nicky not rate that tag
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:14:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25365181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osamuchuu/pseuds/osamuchuu
Summary: Who do you become, when you haven’t been yourself in such a long time?
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Lykon/Quynh | Noriko, Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 18
Kudos: 127





	Oceanborn

**Author's Note:**

> I am not loved  
> by the ocean.
> 
> I am not loved  
> by the sea.
> 
> But I am the  
> oceanborn.
> 
> Will you please  
> drown me again?
> 
> \- Nick Wong

Drowning is a terrible way to die. Or maybe it can be a peaceful one, if you only have to do it once. You can’t remember what it felt like, the first time. 

Maybe being burned is worse, you’ve never been burned alive before. You laugh, because it’s funny— because it’s still _true_. There’s still some pain this world has deigned to spare you from, only it doesn’t matter anymore. 

How much of your body was still yours, now? How much of yourself had poured out with the water you screamed from your lungs a thousand times over?

_“Just you and me...”_

_“...until the end.”_

A promise. A pact the only being in this world you’ve ever loved pressed inside your patchwork heart a moment before it was blown to pieces. _Again._

Maybe it would be easier to forget yourself entirely, at this point— to become something new. Something unbreakable.

“Quynh, _please_ , let me dry your face.” The boy with wide, open eyes hovers above you, smiling even as you spit in his face for the some-hundredth time. You hate him. You want your eyes to look like his. Maybe, if they did—

“Leave her, Nicky.” A tired sigh spills from the voice you most and least want to hear. “She’s not comfortable around men. Lykon was the only exception...” 

“Lykon.” You repeat the word uselessly, but it does call Andromache to your side, and that feels like one of those “small wins” the doe-eyed boy keeps telling you to look out for. 

“Yea. You ready to talk now?” Andromache asks, and you wonder why she has to ask such a thing when you’ve been screaming her name for five hundred years. You wonder if your voice even belongs to you anymore, or to her, or to the sea. 

“I’m ready.” You say, because you are weak and your anger dissolved into sea-foam at the sight of her— just like it always did, which is lucky because they tell you she is different now, _fragile_ , easy to hit hard enough that she may never rise back up again.

Just like Lykon.

You wish it could be your turn— or, you don’t wish that. It’s difficult to grasp what you wish for lately, when everything always spills out from the space between your fingers the moment you get your hands around it.

~.~.~

Later, you watch the young couple kiss in the dark. They are _fascinating_. So loving, in a strange, showy way that almost seems disingenuous— their hands roam across each other's bodies without fear or hesitation, and they speak so freely.

It reminds you vaguely of the years you spent with Andromache by your side, only it _doesn’t_ , because the two of you never needed to trade words to convey or understand the depth of feeling inside your hearts. It was as easy as breathing, well, before breath became such a luxury. 

They don’t know you’re watching them, and you suspect they might not like to find out, and still you can’t help but creep closer, needing to satisfy your curiosity. The taller one speaks first.

“Nicky, I just don’t want you to hurt yourself with this. I _know_ you, you’ll make it your responsibility and feel a failure if you can’t spin this into a happy enough ending.” He touches the doe-eyed boy behind the ear while he talks, gentle. You wonder what it might feel like to be touched there, now. You touch yourself. Is there any water left there, behind your ears?

“I’m just doing what I can to help. She needs to talk with _people_ , Yusuf, and not just Andy. She needs to learn about the world again. Feel safe.” They join hands, and then, very quickly, faces.

You and Andromache never had arguments like this. 

“She killed Booker seventeen times, even if he says he likes it. She’s dangerous,” A sigh. “And Andy is vulnerable now.”

You want to laugh because Andromache is _not_ vulnerable, could never be such an ugly word. Mortal, maybe, but you have your doubts about that as well. You do not laugh though, because if you did they would _see_ you, and you are hiding. 

“What are you suggesting?” The kind boy asks.

“Nothing, I won’t come against you. Your heart is, as ever and always, in the right place.” They shift closer to each other, pulled by the tide.

“You make that sound like a flaw.” A playful smile dances across the boy— _Nicky’s_ , face. 

“My love has no flaws.” You swallow a gasp. Such a lie would never pass between you and Andromache. You would kill the one who spoke it, and so would she.

“And my love is a giant sap.” But all is forgiven, somehow, and they kiss again, so slowly that it makes you sigh.

Perhaps there is some good left in the world, bound in an iron coffin of cruelty and cast into the sea. You do laugh this time, because you are a very many things now and none of them are good.

You know they will find you, and they do. They’re coming to take you away. To throw you into the sea.

You scream.

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically a draft that I am yeeting into the world to test the waters.
> 
> Please give a comment if you like this at all it will mean so much to me and maybe inspire me to continue this or write something longer~
> 
> I’m @dazaipedia on twt and would love to scream about Quynh or any of these absolute angels.


End file.
